On the occasion of the International Day for Tolerance, as well as marking of 10 years since the adoption of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination, Commissioner for Protection of Equality organized an annual conference in cooperation with the OSCE Mission to Serbia and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway.
The challenges we are facing in times of great crisis and turbulence are numerous, but I am proud of what we have achieved. Looking back, behind us are thousands of women in the public sector who have not been forced to retire because of a law that discriminated against them, the Hemodialysis department in Vrnjacka Banja that started receiving patients after many years, girls enrolling in military gymnasiums, fathers who can escort their children in hospitals, said Commissioner Brankica Jankovic, adding that although not all problems were solved, positive developments are still visible.
Despite the optimism, difficulties are evident and they are often not exclusively ours, all countries in the region and whole Europe are facing them, where xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism are on the rise… Hate speech is a growing and worrying trend in public space and has become more complex due to new models of communication, migration and new social patterns of behavior. Just look at the footage of peer violence or violence against women circulating on social networks – Commissioner said and concluded that while we have not managed to solve much in the offline world we have already been overwhelmed by the challenges of the online world.
The results of the research “Attitudes of citizens towards discrimination in Serbia” were presented at the conference. It is the sixth consecutive survey on this topic in the last ten years, done in collaboration with the German Development Cooperation Organization-GIZ.
Commissioner for Protection of Equality is recognized as an actor that can greatly contribute to combating discrimination. The visibility of the institution has also been increased, as more than half of citizens know that there is an institution that protects the equality of all citizens. The survey found that citizens perceive Roma people as the most vulnerable group, followed by women, members of the LGBT population, persons with intellectual disabilities and the poor, as poor. Respondents see the media as institutions that may give greatest contribution to suppression of discrimination as well as to encourage it, followed by the family, school, government and the citizens themselves.
“Annual Journalism Awards for Tolerance” were presented at the conference this year, for the fifth time and jointly awarded by the Commissioner for Equality Protection and the OSCE Mission to Serbia. Award winners are: Aljosa Mudri (vugl.rs), Bojana Milovanovic (Novi Magazin), Jelena Dikovic (Today), Suzana Trajkovic (Espresso), Aleksandar Minic (Tv Forum Prijepolje), Biljana Jovicic Radulovic (RTS), Bratislav Ilic (First) , Milica Batricevic and Jovana Netkovic (Vugl rs and Befem Production).
The awards for the City / Municipality of Equal Opportunities were presented for the second time with the support of the Norwegian Embassy. The winners are the municipalities: Medvedja (first place), Priboj (second place) and Aranđelovac (third place).
